Stragglers were still coming up the hill around 7:30 when the Park Rangers first noticed the lightning in the west. Thunder had rumbled in the distance a number of times by then. The clouds were a deep blue in the West, and they were moving SW to NE. Our folks with equipment started breaking down and heading to the trail shortly thereafter. Chuck Simms, Amy White, and Marc Arnold all brought scopes. I handed out 23 pair of Eclipse Glasses, so I'll use that as a count. The Sun had previously been shining, but disappeared behind the clouds shortly after we got to the top, around 6:40pm.
I dragged my feet going down, but it just wasn't going to happen, and I was the last down at 7:55pm. After the Rangers urged us down several times from the lookout due to lightning, I was talking to folks in the parking lot, when it suddenly looked a little pink in the west. I snuck back up the hill with some newly-arrived hikers right at 8:00 and saw the Sun! I got the camera out, but the bottom half of the Sun was in the trees. That was 8:01. Then the Sun was gone.
So close!
We did not get wet at Klondike. Just up the road in Defiance it had poured, and the rain continued for me the rest of the way north. A note on this site for the future. The lookout gives a "good" western view, but the elevation west of here is higher than it is at the MO river. A piece of flat land 10+ miles west of here with an unobstructed western horizon would have been better.
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